Our silent witness

A Stewardship Reflection by Erin Dowell

September 26, 2026

Never underestimate the power of indirect teaching.

I’ve been teaching Art for almost three decades. Nearly all of those years have been at the elementary level, teaching 3 to 11-year-olds. Each fall I train all the new elementary Art teachers to get them ready to step into a USD259 classroom. I frequently host student teachers, college observers and peer observers. In this District, we only see our students once a week for 45 minutes. In the grand scheme of a school year, with days off, snow days, boil advisory days (haha), at best, we get to teach for just over 20 hours total. Even over the course of 7 years with me, that time is woefully insufficient to impart upon a student all that I think they need to know and experience in an art room.

So thank goodness for indirect teaching!

Why do I tell you this? Because indirect teaching, otherwise known as modeling, or silent witness in the world of theology, is more powerful than we often credit. We can’t keep data on it. It’s a bit elusive. It inspires but we don’t always know who it inspires or how it inspires them or when. Sometimes we’re convinced it has done nothing, or it doesn’t matter, because we don’t get feedback from it. But then we might hear later, sometimes years later, that something or someone we saw or heard changed our lives for the better.

I tell all those student teachers and observers to find solace in the indirect teaching that we can offer. It fills in gaps. It allows the student to learn when the time is right, when they’re most open to the lesson, often unbeknownst to us! I don’t write lesson plans for indirect teaching, but I do plan for it. I create a kid-friendly classroom where they feel wanted. I put images of beauty and truth in front of them, to ponder, to see again and again. I model for them how to exhibit good craftsmanship. They see from year-to-year how their artwork looks more mature than the Kindergartener’s artwork. I’ve been at this teaching game long enough to have proof that the gap-filler is powerful.

Again, why do I tell you this?

Because I used to want to Mom our beloved seminarians.

What?

Yes. All those young men, coming to our campus to live and study. I wanted to Mom them. Make them cookies, ask how I could pray for them, check in on them, ask about their prayer life, give them the Mom look if I didn’t like what I heard, etc. 

When the House of Formation opened in 2017 I knew some of those boys. They were the sons of friends of mine. They were friends of my kids. As each year has progressed, I’ve known more and more of them, having known so many of them since they were born. I was a part of their childhoods. I was already invested in their lives. With them so close I wanted to continue to invest in them, in a way that I could because I was in the parish, unlike their parents.

And then Fr. Mike Simone told me no. 

Excuse me?

He told me their time needed to be protected, that they needed to focus on their studies, their relationships with each other, their relationships with God, their discernment.

Okay, sure. But me talking to them or asking them to help with the Parish Dinner (as I was then the Volunteer Coordinator and we needed their young backs!) certainly couldn’t be that big of a distraction!

Oh, but it could be!

In the fall of 2023, my stepson, Zach, entered the House of Formation. We were so excited for him and proud of him for saying “Yes!” to God and taking a leap of faith and obedience to see where God was directing him. For the months leading up to his entry we heard about his meetings with Fr. Chad Arnold and Bishop Kemme. Fr. Chad came over for dinner to answer our questions. We ordered Zach’s cassock and surplice (special ordered because he’s so dang tall!). As required of all entering seminarians, I sent three favorite family recipes and made sure Zach knew how to make them by himself so that he could share them with his brother seminarians at the House. Zach spent that summer as a Totus Tuus parish counselor. All was going well.

And then he got real cranky at home!

I wondered if he should be leaving our house and living with new people being so cranky. I mentioned my concern to Fr. Mike, who at the time was still the Director for the House of Formation, as well as our parish Pastor. He told me not to worry about it. “These guys have a lot going on in their heads, more than you can imagine. He’ll be okay.” I wasn’t sure if he was actually hearing my Mom concern.

But then the school year started and I quickly learned that he was right on all accounts…..both to allow them to focus on seminary life and to not worry about all that was going on in their heads (or maybe even their use of manners while cranky)!

As Zach began his life in the seminary, I became protective of his time being protected. I saw that he not only needed time for class and homework, but for the deeper things happening in his head and heart. He needed the solidarity of those on the same path. He needed to be allowed to focus within…within his own heart and within the walls of the House of Formation.

Over the next two years I would hear myself in the words of my fellow parishioners. “I wish we could get to know them better.” “I think if they’re going to live in this parish they should help in this parish!” But this time when I would hear those questions and statements, I would hear myself answer them like Fr. Mike. “They need to focus on what they’re doing in the seminary.” 

And I would also hear myself say Fr. Mike’s words; the words I never actually believed before Zach entered. “Our prayers for them matter. We witness to them just by living in the parish and going to Mass.”

That silent witness! The indirect teaching! The modeling!
 

When Fr. Mike would say we witnessed to the seminarians, I blew it off every time. To me it was never enough. I wanted to do more! I wanted access to the young men. Once our own son was a seminarian I realized I had access. We, the entire parish of St. Joseph’s have that access…..like no one else in the Diocese does!

We are their silent witness! We indirectly teach them about married life, parenting, discernment of our vocation. We model for them how to support a parish and build a solid community. Sure, they probably (hopefully) saw it growing up in their own home parishes and communities. But were they ready for the lesson then? Were they open to seeing those lives lived out yet? Is it possible that our little parish fills in a gap in their experiences? As our seminarians discern, asking God if He wants them to be priests, religious, Dads, husbands, they are looking around. They are looking at us! 

And we are looking at them. Specifically, our children are looking at them!

The seminarians are witnessing to us as well! They are indirectly teaching and modeling that seminary life is vibrant, fun, serious, joyful, difficult. We see them worship. We see them receive Jesus in the Eucharist with sincerity and humility and reverence. Our kids see them play on the playground and talk to them outside, getting to know their names. They see them serve at Totus Tuus, both in our parish and at Camp Kapaun. We see the seminarians pray in our adoration chapel on Saturday mornings before Mass, on Sundays before they “report back” from a weekend off. We see them take walks during silent retreat weekends, praying a rosary while they walk. We see them play together, laugh together, pray together, discern together, grow together.

What a beautiful, reciprocal gift!

When I think of the trickle-down effect of all of this, it makes my heart sing and brings me to my knees in thanksgiving. These young men. Men. Some, by God’s will, will become priests! They will bring us Jesus in the sacraments! They will be future pastors, maybe for our own children when they move out and form families in other parishes. Those priests might be the former seminarian your son was watching, and now your son or grandson is answering God’s call into the seminary, because of that seminarian’s silent witness!

Or that former seminarian, who saw that you loved your wife like Jesus loves the Church, is now married to your niece across town. Because some will discern out, as Zach did. And that’s never a failure. That’s discernment. That’s what the seminary allows the men to do. To prayerfully discern, to develop holy relationships that last, to grow in holiness, to hear God’s voice and give their “Yes!” to His calls. We, as the people of St. Joseph’s get to aide in that discernment. We get to help protect them in this most holy path they are on, no matter how God directs it for them. 

Let us see the proximity of the seminary on our campus and the presence of these men in our parish as the blessing and privilege that it is. A silent witness. An indirect teaching that inspires but can’t be quantified. A reciprocal modeling of how to live our lives, following Jesus. 

St. Philip Neri, pray for us!